Five Odd Honors (18 page)

As a final touch, Brenda coiled her braid into a loose knot at the back of her head, and hung at her waist the carved stone frog charm Des had given her before their first venture into the guardian domains.

First,
she thought.
This makes the third—or is it fourth?—trip. What ever, I’m certainly not ready to take it all for granted.

Reunited with the Horse.

Loyal Wind closed his eyes and shivered with delight. One of the Orphans had told him that in a legend from one of the cultures of the Land of the Burning, the Horse was said to be the wind condensed into living form. Loyal Wind thought that image was nicely poetic, but every right-thinking person knew that the Horse was an embodiment of Fire.

Loyal Wind burned with that fire now, and until it had been restored to him, he had not realized how much he had longed for its warmth.

Now, as the Horse, he carried Flying Claw, the young Tiger of the Lands, ahead of the rest, scouting the location of each of the Nine Gates, making certain that there were no difficulties.

Since eight of the nine gates had been created as a gift by the rulers of the guardian domains, no trouble was expected.

But we did not expect Thundering Heaven to turn against us, and the question of where that strange sword of his came from remains unanswered. And if that is disquieting, even more so is the sense that there are questions we lack even the information to ask.

The gates were not difficult to locate. Flying Claw’s “brother Tiger,” the great White Tiger of the West, Pai Hu, had given a small blessing to the two Tigers in their company. Both Pearl Bright and Flying Claw could feel the direction of the next gate as soon as they passed into the appropriate section of the guardian domains. Pearl was guiding the larger part of the group, letting her restless younger counterpart range ahead.

That main group was indeed large, for in addition to the Thirteen Orphans it included Honey Dream, Thorn, Shackles, and Twentyseven-Ten .

These last three were uneasy allies, as Loyal Wind saw matters, but he had reviewed the treaties that bound them to service, and thought they would remain faithful to the letter of these documents. He would remain watchful to assure they remained faithful to the spirit as well.

The guardians had not set the gates side by side. In most cases they had even gone to some trouble to conceal them from casual detection. In a few cases—as when the Vermillion Bird of the South set the Second Gate high on a cliff face—reaching the gate offered some difficulty.

Initially, Loyal Wind wondered if this challenge had been intentional, or if the Vermillion Bird had not considered the near impossibility of mere humans reaching a gate set within a sheer rock wall. When they found that the Dark Warrior had placed the Fourth Gate on an island in the middle of a deep, still lake, Loyal Wind ceased to wonder. The four guardians remained edgy.

The challenges increased in difficulty the farther they progressed, and Loyal Wind knew he himself should be more nervous, but the dual joys of being permitted to once again cross into the land of the living, and of being re united with the Horse made him feel as if he had joined the Eight Immortals in one of their unending drinking bouts, experiencing all the delights of wine without the complication of a hangover.

After many hours of travel, they reached the Ninth Gate. This was set in the domain of Ch’ing Lung, the Azure Dragon of the East, and Ch’ing Lung had made certain that not even the most clever of his denizens would interfere with it.

As the Tiger is the lord of all the land animals, so the Dragon is the lord of the waters. Yet the element specifically associated with the direction east is wood.

“It’s where?” asked Shen Kung, hurrying up to join them, the other Dragon, Righteous Drum, only a pace behind.

“There,” Flying Claw said, pointing into the depths of a lake. “Loyal Wind and I circled the lake several times so I could triangulate. At first I thought the gate was on the other side of the lake, but it’s there, in the depths, in the midst of that clump of trees.”

“Trees?” Des Lee said. “Don’t you mean seaweed or kelp or something?”

“Take a look,” Flying Claw said. “It looks like a forest to me.”

“You’re right,” the Rooster said. “Trees. Deciduous mostly, with a tasteful scattering of evergreens.”

Loyal Wind had shifted back into his human form after their scouting was concluded. Now he offered his own observations.

“We have seen nothing move there, not even the trees.”

“Like they’re frozen?” Brenda Morris asked.

“Like that,” Flying Claw agreed.

“So,” said Pearl, her hand resting lightly on the hilt of her sword, “it’s not like we have monsters to fight.”

“No,” Nissa Nita said, shivering a little like a frightened rabbit, “we just have to figure out how to get down there without drowning.”

“Easy enough,” Brenda said. She turned to Shen Kung and Righteous Drum. “We can do what we did before. I mean, Dragons can extend the ability to breathe water to those they carry—and this time we won’t be doing anything that should exhaust anyone.”

Righteous Drum nodded. “An elegant solution, and precisely the one I suspect Ch’ing Lung expected us to employ.”

“Wait,” Pearl Bright said. “Before we start ferrying ourselves down there, there’s something that needs to be done. If we are to be able to cross into the Lands—that is, if we need to—the Exile must be rescinded. Even if we aren’t needed there—and I for one hope we will not be—then the Exile still must be rescinded so that the original Thirteen will be free to return to the Lands.”

Honey Dream reached into the sleeve of her shenyi and extracted an ivory scroll case.

“I have the ritual here,” she said. “Gentle Smoke was a tremendous help in the design.”

Standing side by side, as they were now, Loyal Wind found himself thinking how very different the two Snakes were. Honey Dream was the more impulsive, the more temperamental. By contrast, Gentle Smoke, smiling softly now at the compliment her younger associate had paid her, was practically the embodiment of the diplomatic truth that sometimes it was wisest to be overlooked until one must strike.

“I was pleased to assist,” Gentle Smoke said. “My training in the laws and rites of the Lands Born from Smoke and Sacrifice is a bit outdated, perhaps, but not so much as to be useless. After the Exile, I found myself thinking what a great deal of time I had spent committing to memory what was now unnecessary information. I must say I was pleased to be proven wrong.”

Honey Dream gave a quick smile of appreciation. “Far from useless. Far from.”

The younger Snake resumed her authoritative manner.

“Line up,” Honey Dream ordered, “in the position of your place on the zodiac wheel. Albert, you stand in the center.”

The Thirteen Orphans, living and dead, did as instructed, leaving Brenda Morris, looking slightly forlorn, off to one side.

“Now,” Honey Dream said, “link arms. No, don’t hold hands.” This to Bent Bamboo, who with a return of his more usual lasciviousness had grabbed Copper Gong’s hand very firmly in his.

There was shuffling and nervous laughter as they did this, variations of height and size making for some awkward combinations. When they were all in place, Honey Dream nodded approval.

“I know this will be awkward, but without losing your current connection, extend your hands and fingers—lower arms, too, if you can manage it—toward Albert Yu. That connects him to the whole. Gentle Smoke and I were uncertain whether his exile needed to be rescinded, since the stolen child never formally agreed to exile, but we thought we shouldn’t leave that to chance. Albert, extend your arms toward the others, but don’t touch anyone in particular. Now revolve slowly, so that you are not aligning yourself with any one person.”

The dignified Albert Yu did so, but Loyal Wind heard him mutter, “I feel like an idiot,” and Pearl Bright softly hush him.

Honey Dream now turned to her father and Flying Claw.

“We rehearsed this several times already. We read the words on the scroll together.”

Three voices—two deep and masculine, one melodiously feminine—began, “As the affiliates of the Earthly Branches, legally chosen, our bonds sealed, we assert our right and our duty to rescind . . .”

Loyal Wind became aware that he was hearing something other than the stately progress of those measured words “exile accepted,” “exile revoked.” Something like a wind rushed in his ears, or perhaps it was the racing sound of a bonfire newly lit and crackling toward the heavens. Air rushed and snapped. Bonds that had been sealed around his soul, always felt, but for the sake of sanity nearly forgotten, loosened, loosened, then slipped away entirely.

Tears coursed down Loyal Wind’s cheeks, blurring his vision, but he did not break the circle of linked arms to wipe them away.

Even when the ritual had been worked that enabled him to pass out of the afterlife into the world of the living, even when the Horse had come back to him, and he had ridden once again filled with the Celestial Flame, Loyal Wind had not felt such joy, such a sense of being complete in himself.

He gloried in the sensation, and through the rush of wind and fire heard three voices raised in final salutation: “Now, your long journey is ended. We welcome you home once more.”

Loyal Wind let his arms drop from those of Gentle Smoke and Copper Gong. He wiped his sleeve across his eyes, mopping away the haze of tears. He saw the others—even those who had never been to the Lands, even Brenda Morris, who was not the Rat in truth, doing the same.

Typically, it was Pearl Bright, always so careful to guard her warmer emotions, who first got hold of herself.

“Well, that seems to have worked. Beautifully done, Honey Dream. Now, shall we see about getting ourselves to the bottom of the lake?”

The two Dragons took themselves off to one side where they could divest themselves of their robes and change their forms. Everyone had stored extra ch’i in anticipation of this journey, and Righteous Drum applied just a bit extra to provide himself with the means of propelling himself not too clumsily despite his missing forelimb into the waters of the lake.

“I want to be one of the first down,” Riprap said. “I’m tired of being useless.”

“I’ll go as well,” Albert Yu said. “I would like an opportunity to compose myself.”

“Do we need to take our clothes off?” Riprap said, fingering the deep golden yellow trouser suit he wore.

“No need,” Righteous Drum said from where he rested in the shallows. “As long as you remain in contact with us, you will stay dry.”

“But at the bottom?” Riprap said doubtfully.

Shen Kung, distinguishable from Righteous Drum only by virtue of possessing all his limbs, replied, “I wouldn’t be concerned. I think that Ch’ing Lung will have made provisions for breathing and other matters of physical comfort in the location of the gate. After all, he would know that we all must assemble there in order to open the gate back into the Lands.”

“And if he didn’t?” Riprap said, not argumentatively, but with that thoroughness Loyal Wind had come to expect of him.

“Then we shall adapt our plans,” Shen said. “Come along.”

But the Dragons’ trust in Ch’ing Lung’s forethought proved merited. The Ninth Gate was enclosed within a translucent bubble that held air and was sized to accommodate their entire party—twenty in all—without strain.

Shen and Honey Dream were busy with ink brushes, marking an elaborate zodiac wheel on the beautiful double-paneled polished mahogany door, which was the physical manifestation of the Ninth Gate.

Loyal Wind felt anticipation building, anticipation that sang in harmony with the joy that had filled him when the Exile was rescinded. Even after death, when all barriers should have been lifted, the Exile had persisted. Not one of the Exiles’ ghosts could see the Lands, nor feel the offerings that Righteous

Drum had assured them had continued to be offered by those whose lives and property had been preserved by the Exiles’ sacrifice.

And in just a few moments . . .

Righteous Drum was deep in conversation with a spirit Loyal Wind could only faintly perceive—a chiao, also often called a marsh dragon. The chiao was similar to the traditional
lung,
but had a somewhat smaller head and neck, and possessed no horns. The colors that adorned its scales were quite spectacular: its flanks in brilliant yellow, its breast sunset red, its back striped in shades of green.